PwC’s inaugural Global Data Centre Outlook projects a multi-decade infrastructure cycle increasingly dominated by recurring GPU and server investment, with power availability, chip access and data sovereignty determining where trillions of dollars in data center capital ultimately land. The scale of the AI infrastructure buildout is becoming easier to describe in trillions than billions. PwC’s inaugural Global Data Centre Outlook 2026–50 projects $31.6 trillion in cumulative global data center capital expenditure through 2050 under its central scenario, with annual spending rising from roughly $800 billion in 2026 to $1.1 trillion in 2030 and $1.8 trillion by 2050. There is also an enormous range around that central case. PwC, working with Oxford Economics, puts plausible cumulative investment at roughly $22 trillion to nearly $50 trillion, depending primarily on how quickly AI adoption progresses. But the most important finding may not be the $31.6 trillion headline.PwC Maps $31.6 Trillion AI Data Center Buildout Through 2050 | Data Center Frontier